The Perils Of Producing An Anthony Bourdain Show: Being Covered In Drugs

In a New York Post article, the crew of Zero Point Zero recounted how they’d spent thirteen (13!) years traveling the globe with Anthony Bourdain, doing exciting things like filming an Emmy-winning show in the world’s most beautiful and remote locations, getting trapped in Beirut during the Israel-Lebanon war, and even wisely refusing to eat warthog rectum and thus avoiding a parasite infestation.

While that is all very perilous and fraught, though, nothing beats the time that they went to Panama in 2010, and their fixer mentioned that the country’s head of security was a massive fan of Bourdain’s:

They were chatting over a fruit plate and coffee when the government official invited the crew to see 6 tons of raw, uncut cocaine burned on the outskirts of town. Their eyes lit up — the episode had just got interesting.

They followed him and watched truck-fulls of the drug unloaded onto giant tarps and then set aflame.

“[We left] a lot of [our] clothing in Panama because going back through Customs would have been a problem,” Schutz says. “Tony insisted on keeping his boots. But we landed back at JFK and were going through security and the sniffer dog came right up to him and the security guy was like, ‘Hey man, love your show!'”

Can you imagine, after filming most likely the coolest thing you’ve ever seen, having your feet ripped off by a cocaine-sniffing dog upon your return home? By the way, this is what six tons of burning, uncut cocaine looks like: